Conventional electrical connectors often have connector housings that secure the position of electric contacts, such as pin contacts. The electrical contacts generally have regions which form a positive fit with a contact-securing member formed in the housing and extending in at least one direction. In this manner, an undesirable removal of an installed electrical contact from the housing can be prevented. However, these conventional electrical connectors are known to suffer from the fact that the contact-securing notch design often break if manufactured imprecisely and/or if excessive forces act on them.
Publication DE 10 2012 102 966 A1, filed by the Applicants, describes a plug element in which the contact-securing member has at least one elongation portion. As a result, it is elastic and manufacturing tolerances can be compensated. Various described embodiments show contact-securing members having large openings which extend along a pivoting direction through a contact-securing member of the connector housing. While this configuration of a contact-securing member has good elasticity, it suffers from several disadvantages. For example, since an outer surface of the contact-securing member has a number of openings extending over a large area, and the majority are used for the elongation portion, the use of an outside of the contact-securing element for additional elements is no longer possible. For example, handles, latching elements or inscriptions cannot be positioned in the region of the elongation portion. In addition, manufacturing such a contact-securing member and housing is very complex, because the structures of the elongation portions and the structure of the latching lug can only be produced with injection-moulding method by a combination of lateral slides which are movable in different directions. This means that even small changes in the configuration of the elongation portion or the latching lug, require large portions of the tools used, including the lateral slides, to be redesigned or reconfigured. This is generally expensive and complex, and greatly limits the variety of connectors that can realistically be produced.